Friday May 13: Reading Group, Business Meeting, Pedagogy
12.30—13.00: arrival, registration, and coffee
13.00—15.00: Reading Group led by Professor Janet Floyd, King’s College London
Text: Rebecca Harding Davis, “Earthen Pitchers”
I came across this serial fiction in the context of writing about relations of friendship between artists and writers working alongside one another in the 1870s. I was looking for discussions and representations of the socialities produced by periodicals other than the major literary monthlies, and found Davis’s portrait of the ‘evenings’ of a journalist in Philadelphia striking. Her address of questions of ‘career’ was interesting too (and took me to Davis’s autobiographical writing). And then ‘Earthen Pitchers’ itself – quite a puzzling piece of work – took me back to the nature of our engagement with Davis herself.
We welcome everyone to join this informal roundtable and share our knowledge, interests and insights on these and any other questions of interest.
15.15—16.15: BrANCA Business Meeting
16.30—18.30: Pedagogy workshop led by Dr. Hilary Emmett and Dr. Thomas Ruys Smith (UEA)
This workshop - Pedagogical Possibilities - seeks to open up new possibilities for curriculum design and assessment in nineteenth-century American literary studies. Using our recently launched (2021) module "Little Women and Barefoot Boys: Inventing American Childhoods" as a case study, Tom and I will discuss our co-production with our students of a new, scholarly edition of Susan Coolidge’s 1872 novel, What Katy Did. On this module students work with UEA’s Boiler House Press to produce a new edition of a classic American text for a new generation of young readers. As well as writing a collaborative introduction, they engage with the full publishing process, from conception to design and marketing. This practical work is underpinned by their exploration of the rich history of nineteenth-century American children’s literature, and their engagement with the ways in which American writers addressed young audiences across centuries of social and cultural change. The module has also given us the chance to teach and discuss the groundbreaking work done by Brigitte Fielder in identifying and amplifying literature written for Black children prior to the early 20thC and we anticipate that this workshop will provide a further opportunity for discussing texts that are ripe for republication.
Following our discussion of the pedagogical strategies we employ in engaging students in co-production of published scholarly work, including the many moments that have required significant pivoting and trouble-shooting during the first and second iterations of this module, we will facilitate discussion of further ways in which we can ensure nineteenth century American literature continues to be seen as central to the curriculum of courses in English Literature and American Studies and, indeed, as playing an important role in the future prospects of our graduates.
18.30: drinks in local pub
20.00: dinner in local area
Saturday May 14: Panels (15-minute papers and discussion)
12.30—13.45
A: Cooper and the Ecologies of Settlement
Cécile Roudeau (Université de Paris), ‘Forest Politics: Cooper, Trees, and Protecting the Public Interest’
Patrick Turner (King’s College London), ‘“I can hardly be called a settler”: Sarmiento’s Cooper and Settler Colonial Studies’
Sammy Moriarty (King’s College London), ‘“The pale-faces: they talk with the bees”: whiteness, extraction, and insectoid attachments in Cooper’s The Oak Openings’
B: Opening Domesticities: Unhousing Melville, Thoreau, and James
Rodrigo Andrés (Universitat de Barcelona), ‘The Opening of Moby-Dick as an Opening up to Pluralistic Living Spaces’
Arturo Corujo (Universitat de Barcelona), ‘Queer Domesticities: Materiality, Subjectivity, and Temporalities in Melville’s Sea Narratives’
Michael Jonik (University of Sussex), ‘“This Humane-house”: Dwelling and Wreckage in Thoreau’s Cape Cod’
David Fontanals (Universitat de Barcelona), ‘Mediating Thresholds, Therapeutic Openings, and Domestic Demons in Henry James’ “The Jolly Corner”
14.00—15.15
A: Opening Up “Interventions”: Edinburgh UP and the Interventions Book Series (roundtable)
Cécile Roudeau (Université de Paris), ‘Un-grounding Freeman: an intervention into the politics of feminist recovery’
Hannah Lauren Murray (University of Liverpool), ‘The Critical Interventions of Liminal Whiteness’
Stephanie Peebles Tavera (Texas A&M University), ‘Affective Interventions: the (p)rescription narratives of feminist medical fiction’
Marissa López (University of California, Los Angeles), ‘Intervenciones mexicanes: Prosthetics, Pathologies, and Periodizations of the Latinx C19’
Edward Sugden (King’s College London), ‘What is an Intervention?’
B: Openings in Space
Caitlin Smith (Heidelberg Center for American Studies), ‘Tender Fathers, Curious Sons, and Fellow-Feeling in the Holy Land’
Olga Akroyd (Global Institute for Research, Education and Scholarship), ‘“A Land of Pharaoh and his Plagues”: John Randolph Roanoke and the Mission to Russia’
Harriet Thompson (King’s College London), ‘The Whale and the Wire: Moby-Dick and the 1858 Atlantic Telegraph Cable’
Samantha Seto (King's College London), ‘Transnationalism and Character Identity at the Turn of the Century in Edith Wharton’s Novels’
15.30—16.45
A: Native Articulations of Kinship and Belonging
Benjamin Railton (Fitchburg State University), ‘Resisting and Reframing Removal: William Apess’ Critical Patriotism’
Jessica Conrad (Clayton State University), ‘Print, Protest, and the Roots of Contemporary Activism in Apess’ Eulogy on King Philip’
Francisco Delgado (Borough of Manhattan Community College), ‘“what his words had done”: Handsome Lake’s Reframing of the Founding of America and the Haudenosaunee-US Relations’
Scott Zukowski (University of Graz), ‘Visual Violence: Shifting Depictions of Nobility and Savagery’
Sarah Moritz (Concordia University), ‘“We speak the truth”: The Oral vs. Written History of the Declaration of the Lillooet Tribe’
B: Religion as Re-Reading
Claudia Stokes (Trinity University), “Sentimentalism and the Virtues of Re-Reading”
Kenyon Gradert (Samford University), ‘Puritan Spirits in the Abolitionist Imagination’
J. Laurence Cohen (Georgia Tech), ‘Excavating Exodus’
Merav Schocken (University of California, Santa Barbara), ‘Material Faith: Consolation and the Protestant Self in The Gates Ajar’
17.00—18.15
A: Racial Representations
Nicole Aljoe (Northeastern University), ‘A Secret History of the Sable Venus: Digital Analysis, Narrative Authority, and the Discourses of Race in European Novels with Afro-Caribbean Female Protagonists, 1808-1827’
Erin Forbes (University of Bristol), Title TBC
Marlas Whitley (North Carolina State University), ‘Feminine Reconstructions in Frances Harper’s Iola Leroy’
B: “Opening Up Post-Reconstruction American Literature: A Roundtable on American Literature in Transition, 1876-1910 (Cambridge UP, 2022)”
Lindsay V. Reckson (Haverford College), ‘We Have Never Been Post-Reconstruction’
J. Michelle Coghlan (University of Manchester), ‘Radical Pasts, Radical Futures’
Natalia Cecire (University of Sussex), ‘Experimental Realisms’
Nicholas Gaskill (University of Oxford), ‘Color Against Realism’
Brigitte Fielder (University of Wisconsin-Madison), ‘Frances Harper’s Reconstructions’
Pamela Thurschwell (University of Sussex), ‘Henry James’ Temporalities’
12.30—13.00: arrival, registration, and coffee
13.00—15.00: Reading Group led by Professor Janet Floyd, King’s College London
Text: Rebecca Harding Davis, “Earthen Pitchers”
I came across this serial fiction in the context of writing about relations of friendship between artists and writers working alongside one another in the 1870s. I was looking for discussions and representations of the socialities produced by periodicals other than the major literary monthlies, and found Davis’s portrait of the ‘evenings’ of a journalist in Philadelphia striking. Her address of questions of ‘career’ was interesting too (and took me to Davis’s autobiographical writing). And then ‘Earthen Pitchers’ itself – quite a puzzling piece of work – took me back to the nature of our engagement with Davis herself.
We welcome everyone to join this informal roundtable and share our knowledge, interests and insights on these and any other questions of interest.
15.15—16.15: BrANCA Business Meeting
16.30—18.30: Pedagogy workshop led by Dr. Hilary Emmett and Dr. Thomas Ruys Smith (UEA)
This workshop - Pedagogical Possibilities - seeks to open up new possibilities for curriculum design and assessment in nineteenth-century American literary studies. Using our recently launched (2021) module "Little Women and Barefoot Boys: Inventing American Childhoods" as a case study, Tom and I will discuss our co-production with our students of a new, scholarly edition of Susan Coolidge’s 1872 novel, What Katy Did. On this module students work with UEA’s Boiler House Press to produce a new edition of a classic American text for a new generation of young readers. As well as writing a collaborative introduction, they engage with the full publishing process, from conception to design and marketing. This practical work is underpinned by their exploration of the rich history of nineteenth-century American children’s literature, and their engagement with the ways in which American writers addressed young audiences across centuries of social and cultural change. The module has also given us the chance to teach and discuss the groundbreaking work done by Brigitte Fielder in identifying and amplifying literature written for Black children prior to the early 20thC and we anticipate that this workshop will provide a further opportunity for discussing texts that are ripe for republication.
Following our discussion of the pedagogical strategies we employ in engaging students in co-production of published scholarly work, including the many moments that have required significant pivoting and trouble-shooting during the first and second iterations of this module, we will facilitate discussion of further ways in which we can ensure nineteenth century American literature continues to be seen as central to the curriculum of courses in English Literature and American Studies and, indeed, as playing an important role in the future prospects of our graduates.
18.30: drinks in local pub
20.00: dinner in local area
Saturday May 14: Panels (15-minute papers and discussion)
12.30—13.45
A: Cooper and the Ecologies of Settlement
Cécile Roudeau (Université de Paris), ‘Forest Politics: Cooper, Trees, and Protecting the Public Interest’
Patrick Turner (King’s College London), ‘“I can hardly be called a settler”: Sarmiento’s Cooper and Settler Colonial Studies’
Sammy Moriarty (King’s College London), ‘“The pale-faces: they talk with the bees”: whiteness, extraction, and insectoid attachments in Cooper’s The Oak Openings’
B: Opening Domesticities: Unhousing Melville, Thoreau, and James
Rodrigo Andrés (Universitat de Barcelona), ‘The Opening of Moby-Dick as an Opening up to Pluralistic Living Spaces’
Arturo Corujo (Universitat de Barcelona), ‘Queer Domesticities: Materiality, Subjectivity, and Temporalities in Melville’s Sea Narratives’
Michael Jonik (University of Sussex), ‘“This Humane-house”: Dwelling and Wreckage in Thoreau’s Cape Cod’
David Fontanals (Universitat de Barcelona), ‘Mediating Thresholds, Therapeutic Openings, and Domestic Demons in Henry James’ “The Jolly Corner”
14.00—15.15
A: Opening Up “Interventions”: Edinburgh UP and the Interventions Book Series (roundtable)
Cécile Roudeau (Université de Paris), ‘Un-grounding Freeman: an intervention into the politics of feminist recovery’
Hannah Lauren Murray (University of Liverpool), ‘The Critical Interventions of Liminal Whiteness’
Stephanie Peebles Tavera (Texas A&M University), ‘Affective Interventions: the (p)rescription narratives of feminist medical fiction’
Marissa López (University of California, Los Angeles), ‘Intervenciones mexicanes: Prosthetics, Pathologies, and Periodizations of the Latinx C19’
Edward Sugden (King’s College London), ‘What is an Intervention?’
B: Openings in Space
Caitlin Smith (Heidelberg Center for American Studies), ‘Tender Fathers, Curious Sons, and Fellow-Feeling in the Holy Land’
Olga Akroyd (Global Institute for Research, Education and Scholarship), ‘“A Land of Pharaoh and his Plagues”: John Randolph Roanoke and the Mission to Russia’
Harriet Thompson (King’s College London), ‘The Whale and the Wire: Moby-Dick and the 1858 Atlantic Telegraph Cable’
Samantha Seto (King's College London), ‘Transnationalism and Character Identity at the Turn of the Century in Edith Wharton’s Novels’
15.30—16.45
A: Native Articulations of Kinship and Belonging
Benjamin Railton (Fitchburg State University), ‘Resisting and Reframing Removal: William Apess’ Critical Patriotism’
Jessica Conrad (Clayton State University), ‘Print, Protest, and the Roots of Contemporary Activism in Apess’ Eulogy on King Philip’
Francisco Delgado (Borough of Manhattan Community College), ‘“what his words had done”: Handsome Lake’s Reframing of the Founding of America and the Haudenosaunee-US Relations’
Scott Zukowski (University of Graz), ‘Visual Violence: Shifting Depictions of Nobility and Savagery’
Sarah Moritz (Concordia University), ‘“We speak the truth”: The Oral vs. Written History of the Declaration of the Lillooet Tribe’
B: Religion as Re-Reading
Claudia Stokes (Trinity University), “Sentimentalism and the Virtues of Re-Reading”
Kenyon Gradert (Samford University), ‘Puritan Spirits in the Abolitionist Imagination’
J. Laurence Cohen (Georgia Tech), ‘Excavating Exodus’
Merav Schocken (University of California, Santa Barbara), ‘Material Faith: Consolation and the Protestant Self in The Gates Ajar’
17.00—18.15
A: Racial Representations
Nicole Aljoe (Northeastern University), ‘A Secret History of the Sable Venus: Digital Analysis, Narrative Authority, and the Discourses of Race in European Novels with Afro-Caribbean Female Protagonists, 1808-1827’
Erin Forbes (University of Bristol), Title TBC
Marlas Whitley (North Carolina State University), ‘Feminine Reconstructions in Frances Harper’s Iola Leroy’
B: “Opening Up Post-Reconstruction American Literature: A Roundtable on American Literature in Transition, 1876-1910 (Cambridge UP, 2022)”
Lindsay V. Reckson (Haverford College), ‘We Have Never Been Post-Reconstruction’
J. Michelle Coghlan (University of Manchester), ‘Radical Pasts, Radical Futures’
Natalia Cecire (University of Sussex), ‘Experimental Realisms’
Nicholas Gaskill (University of Oxford), ‘Color Against Realism’
Brigitte Fielder (University of Wisconsin-Madison), ‘Frances Harper’s Reconstructions’
Pamela Thurschwell (University of Sussex), ‘Henry James’ Temporalities’
